New Catalyst 8.10 Drivers Bring Fan Speed Control

Just a few hours after the new Nvidia 178.24 ForceWare release, AMD posted its new Catalyst 8.10 graphics drivers. The new Catalyst, like with every other release, this one brings performance increases within certain applications as well as minor bug fixes and some new control panel features.

Some cards will apparently gain up to 15 percent performance increases in certain games. And CrossFire users can expect gains of up to 5 percent.

Interestingly however, the Catalyst 8.10 release adds a fan speed control setting in the Overdrive tab of the Catalyst Control Center (CCC) for Radeon 4000-series cards. AMD claims the feature will give its users ‘greater control and flexibility when over-clocking their graphics accelerator’. Now, considering how the HD 4850 and HD 4870 run, heat-wise, this feature adds some value to those packing these cards into poorly ventilated cases or areas of the home. You can also look at the fan speed feature the other way if you are all about keeping your system on the down-low for volume, you can knock it down a few RPM’s if you like.

Aside from the fan speed control being a highlight in this release, the drivers add an option to force component video detection that enables users to force certain Component Video modes to be shown in the CCC display manager.

32-bit and 64-bit editions of the new release for both Windows XP and Vista are available on AMD’s Game Website. Linux users can seek out their own Catalyst 8.10 release on the old AMD drivers page, although release notes have not been published for the Linux flavor as of yet.

  • caskachan
    i hope this fixes the Keyboard type - sound stutter issue all the A740 and a780 chipsets have :S
    Reply
  • I cant find the fan speed control in the overdrive tab! woe is me!
    Reply
  • alvine
    some other webside mentioned up to 15% performance increase. After I loaded up catalyst 8.10 on my 4850 @ 670/1150 and played cod @ 1680x1050 with all max /4xaa I seen big improvement. my fps now is 68-91. i remember with 8.8 it would dip to high 50's.
    Reply
  • voidrunner
    I just checked the driver page .. 8.10 for linux seem to be posted. Unfortunately 8.10 still do not support X.Org 7.4
    With Ubuntu/Kubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10 releases on the way, there'll be a lot of unhappy linux desktop users (including me)
    Reply
  • smalltime0
    voidrunnerI just checked the driver page .. 8.10 for linux seem to be posted. Unfortunately 8.10 still do not support X.Org 7.4With Ubuntu/Kubuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10 releases on the way, there'll be a lot of unhappy linux desktop users (including me)That is what happens when you are in the minority of users.
    Reply
  • voidrunner
    smalltime0We are the few... the proud... :P

    Also, it seems i was wrong..to a degree.
    According to an article in Phoronix, (K)ubuntu 8.10 will ship with drivers capable of supporting X.Org 7.4
    Reply
  • nekatreven
    The fan control is on the overdrive page thingy...or whatever the overclocking page is called. You have to unlock the controls.

    Interestingly, check boxes to enable the fan control and/or the overclocking are separate...but even if you don't increase the numbers and want to run stock the overclocking box has to be enabled for the fan control to have any effect. This is despite the fact that the fan controls are not greyed out with the overclocking option off...you can still set the fan options (they just don't do anything.) ymmv
    Reply
  • yay :D
    Reply